Distressor and Fatso - is there a sw like this?

[Hermetech Mastering]

i've used a lot of hardware and a lot of software, and in my opinion (i was brought up on the sound of analogue tape, vinyl records, top end hi-fi and tube amplifiers), good quality hardware invariably sounds a LOT better than good quality software, but i admit it's completely subjective, and therefore a worthless topic for discussion

[JonnySun 2.0]

Hm, is "good sounding" really a subjective thing? A completely muddy mix - who wants to joy this? Okay, there a lot of people who loves fat big femal asses and tommys ... but ... muddy mixes are muddy mixes. With no transparence, no opened highend etc. Can't imagine someone would judge this in his subjective opinion as "good sounding".

_______

Anyway: I find, INTUBATOR's Sound examples sounded best for me. That's because of really opened highend and in more drastical effect impression as like the others. But it includes no highpass i guess; bass range was to - say it in english ... "breiig", the opposite of transparent.

[omo]

muddy mixes are muddy mixes. With no transparence, no opened highend etc. Can't imagine someone would judge this in his subjective opinion as "good sounding".

There are. An the rasons are -

1. Millions of homemusiAE's on a budget whant to beleave their tools are just as good as financialy unaccessable gear. And many tend to blindly beleave in it yet they have no experience with that gear.
2. SW developers make creazy claims and get those folks into fanclubs, religious clans and so on.
3. MTV feeds people with crap sounding mixes, distorted, squashed, razor mid and highs, hursh sound and most folks think that's they way it should be.
4. MP3 kinda technologies, internet sharing, music libraries kept and listened on computers with crappy sound cards adds to the sound taste aducation of 21st century. Damn, even CD's almost don't sell no longer and apples double their profits thanks to internet music services.

It's gonna be worse. Soon sound of "The Wall" will be considered crap if not yet...

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[Lawnmower Of The Damned]

The Focusrite Liquid Channel has an emulation of the Distressor. It certainly isn't less expensive, but it's got dozens of other compressors and preamps in it too. I haven't had a chance to hear it in person (Though I suspect I've unknowingly heard it on a few albums), but some people that I have a lot of respect for claim that in their A/Bs between the LC and the real thing they were virtualy indistinguishable.

No model of the Fatso however

It seems that they add new emulations on a regular basis. There have been 4 free updates since July of 2004, which seem to add roughly 45 new models. A quick count (Read: possibly a miscount) shows a total of 124 models all together.

At $3,000 you end up paying about $25 per model. It doesn't look bad when you put it that way

[bmanic]

The Focusrite Liquid Channel has an emulation of the Distressor. It certainly isn't less expensive, but it's got dozens of other compressors and preamps in it too. I haven't had a chance to hear it in person (Though I suspect I've unknowingly heard it on a few albums), but some people that I have a lot of respect for claim that in their A/Bs between the LC and the real thing they were virtualy indistinguishable.

Well, I've got a Sintefex fx8000 sitting here on my table and I can for a fact say that the compressors on it (same techonology as in the liquid channel) do NOT sound identical to their hardware. They sound good and capture the 'general' sound and feel but can not reproduce the signal dependant compression character.

I'd say 99% of what you read about the liquid channel is marketing hype, nothing more. I've actually used one for a couple of hours and I did get the impression that it's a very high quality piece of gear (at least when run at 96kHz) but stating that it's a 100% compressor emulation is just not true. However, the microphone preamps are probably much closer emulations tho.

Someday I'll try to capture the distressor with this sintefex but until I find one that I can borrow for a couple of days I'm affraid I'll just have to use the fairchild, tubetech, Manley vari-mu, ssl 9000 and the lovely fairman!

- bManic

[Lawnmower Of The Damned]

A fair statement, and since I haven't heard it myself I certainly wouldn't claim that you're wrong.

I'm not familiar with the FX8000. I'll have to take a look at one.

[Lawnmower Of The Damned]

I can't find any real info on the FX8000. I found Sintefex's website, but their list of american distributors don't seem to actually sell anything. Froogle comes up with absolutely no information about it.

I imagine this thing costs quite a lot more than the Focusrite Liquid Channel, what with the lcd screen on the front of the unit and all of that. Unfortunately it looks like they really don't want anyone to buy it, as I couldn't find one to buy even if I did have the money!

[JonnySun 2.0]

It seems that they add new emulations on a regular basis. There have been 4 free updates since July of 2004, which seem to add roughly 45 new models. A quick count (Read: possibly a miscount) shows a total of 124 models all together.

At $3,000 you end up paying about $25 per model. It doesn't look bad when you put it that way

Good point

[Jaeson Merrill]

.............

if you want your tracks to sound good to you, spend a ton of money on something with knobs, and walla!! it will.

....

[Lawnmower Of The Damned]

Oh, well by all means go ahead and suggest a nice VST preamp. I'd love to save the money, but I'm not sure how I'd plug the mic cable into my screen.

Or maybe I'm just hardware and I should be using some miraculous VST for vocals instead, such as Vocaloid. We all remember how great THAT sounds!

Why is it that you can't even mention a piece of hardware without getting attacked? Do you understand that I'm not attacking software? I've got over $1,500 worth of VST instrument boxes sitting on the shelf in front of me, and I could dig up a lot more if you wanted me to. Software is great. Software kicks ass. But I'm still going to use hardware when it suits me.

And as far as preamps go, hardware is the ONLY option. I've got the money, and I want a good one with lots of flexability. I plan on recording multiple vocalists (From death metal growling to clasical female vocals) and a variety of acoustic instruments, so all of those models would be a great help.

When it comes to compressors I believe many people agree that native compressors have a way to go. If your compressors work for you (And I hope they do) then that's great. I couldn't be happier for you. Unfortunately I have different needs. It doesn't mean that I need something BETTER, it just means that I need something DIFFERENT.

Do I really need to open every post regarding hardware with a disclaimer like this? I get really sick of people assuming that I don't know how to write music because I'm willing to save money to buy gear that I feel suits me well.

Screw it. I'm going to bed.

[jmh]

The debate about hardware versus software always goes like this... if only the both sides were discussing the same thing - in other words, had experience with both, it'd make the whole thing so much smoother.

JMH

[bmanic]

Indeed, this is unfortunate on this forum but one just has to live with it.

About the sintefex, they seem to be so busy selling the liquid channel and I can imagine it's a very lucrative partnership with focusrite so that they are not that concentrated on their own equipment, the FX line, unfortunately .

They do seem to give out the developer kit so once I get some more time I'll try sampling some more difficult hardware like tape, vinyl and some EQ. The vinyl one is tricky as one needs to press a vinyl with the test tone on it!

- bManic

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